The leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) says it has intervened in the crisis rocking the South-West zone of the party.
The PDP’s statement follows a disagreement between two purported factions of the party in the region – Eddy Olafeso led faction and Makanjuola Ogundipe’s faction.
The Olafeso faction is politically headed by the Chairman of the PDP Governors’ Forum and Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose; while the Ogundipe faction has Senator Buruji Kashimu as its political leader.
On Monday, August 7, Olafeso’s faction held a meeting in Ibadan which was attended by some party chieftains in the South-West zone, including Bode Gorge.
The Ogundipe faction also held a press briefing on August 8 in Lagos where it accused Governor Fayose of threatening to expel some of its followers from the party.
Some PDP members, however, are worried over which faction the national leadership of the party will recognise at the non-elective national convention scheduled to hold on Saturday, August 12.
The Chairman of the National Caretaker Committee, Senator Ahmed Makarfi, on Thursday, assured party faithful that the issues would not hinder the success of the PDP convention.
Senator Makarfi stated this during an inspection visit to the venue of the convention – the Eagles Square in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory.
He was accompanied by the Chairman of the Convention Committee and Delta State Governor, Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa, as well as other principal officers of the party.
The visit comes a day after a former minister of aviation, Mr Femi Fani-Kayode, said the PDP would inflict ‘fire and fury’ on the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2019.
Fani-Kayode, who appeared on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Wednesday, noted that with the Supreme Court judgement which ended the leadership tussle in the PDP, the party would go on to reclaim power from the APC. (Channelstv)